Statutory Interpretation of the Legislation

• Author: David A. Potts; Erin Stoik
• Pages: 79-83

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Statutory Interpretation of the Legislation

1704604 ONTARIO LTD V POINTES PROTECTION ASSOCIATION

Justice Côté for the unanimous Supreme Court has written an elegant lucid

guide for the statutory interpretation of the legislation to determine the

legislative intention, covering several vital topics with detail.

1704604 Ontario Ltd v Pointes Protection Association, 2020 SCC 22 at paras 6–18:

[6] Before I explain the parameters of the s. 137.1 framework, it is necessary,

as part of the exercise of statutory interpretation, to outline the legislative

background of the bill which brought s. 137.1 into ef‌fect. Such legislative back-

ground and history of‌fer contextual clues to and insight into the legislative

purpose of the bill, as well as indicia of the proper interpretation of the pro-

visions at issue, which will be explored in turn below. Indeed, this Court has

reiterated on numerous occasions that the modern approach to statutory

interpretation requires that the words of a statute be read “in their entire

context and in their grammatical and ordinary sense harmoniously with the

scheme of the Act, the object of the Act, and the intention of Parliament”

(E. A. Driedger, Construction of Statutes (2nd ed. 1983), at p. 87, quoted in Rizzo

& Rizzo Shoes Ltd. (Re), 1998 CanLII 837 (SCC), [1998] 1 S.C.R. 27, at para. 21).

Anti-SLAPP Advisory Panel: Report to the Attorney General

[7] In 2010, the Attorney General of Ontario mandated an Anti-SLAPP Advis-

ory Panel (“Panel”) to advise the government on how to respond to the prolif-

eration of SLAPPs. The Panel was chaired by experts and examined a plethora

of materials, including legal articles, relevant statutes from other jurisdictions,

and advocacy documents. The Panel also invited comments and submissions

from the public and interested parties. All of this culminated in the Anti-Slapp